Space Shuttle Endeavour at 7:56 p.m. ET today will undock from the International Space Station (ISS), wrapping up a marathon 16-day mission that saw five spacewalks and myriad accomplishments.
Endeavour is slated to land at Kennedy Space Center at 7:01 p.m. Wednesday, in what so far has been a smooth, productive voyage.
The record mission saw multiple accomplishments during a total 33 hours of spacewalks.
Those advances were achieved by the seven Endeavour crew members and the Expedition 16 crew on the space station.
Endeavour crew members are Commander Dominic Gorie, pilot Gregory H. Johnson, and mission specialists Rick Linnehan, Robert L. Behnken, Garrett Reisman, Mike Foreman, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency member Takao Doi.
They spent a dozen days with the space station Expedition 16 crew members, Commander Peggy Whitson, cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko (a flight engineer and also a Soyuz space vehicle commander), and European Space Agency astronaut Leopold Eyharts, also a space engineer. Eyharts is returning on Endeavour, while Reisman will remain on the ISS as an Expedition 16 crew member.
Among their accomplishments during the STS-123 Mission to the space station were spacewalks including, at various points, Linnehan, Behnken, Reisman and Foreman:
- Astronauts took a portion of the Kibo Japanese laboratory module from the Endeavour cargo bay and attached it to the space station. Then astronauts entered Kibo. It will be linked to a ground control station in Japan.
- Then astronauts wrestled to assemble a Canadian robot, Dextre, with such tasks as attaching the arms. Hopefully, Dextre will be able to perform many duties outside the space station, so that astronauts won’t have to go outside on as many risky spacewalks.
- Another spacewalk involved station assembly and other items.
- On one extravehicular activity, astronauts tested a repair technique for heat-resistant protective tiles, squirting “goop” from a device like a caulk gun into purposely damaged tile that on Wednesday will be exposed to the blistering heat of reentry, to see if the repair is effective. Repairing damaged heat tiles has been important to NASA ever since the 2003 incident in which Space Shuttle Columbia was hit by a chunk of foam ripped loose from its external fuel tank, punching a hole in an orbiter vehicle wing. Later, during an attempted return to Earth, blistering gases of reentry rushed into the wing, heating it to the point of structural failure. The ship and crew were lost.
- Yet another spacewalk saw astronauts examine a solar array rotary joint that is supposed to keep giant solar arrays on the space station aimed correctly toward the sun to generate maximum electrical power for the fast-growing station. Debris on the joint has raised concerns. Also, the Endeavour robotic arm was stowed on the space station, so that the next time Endeavour blasts off on a mission to the ISS, there will be room for a huge payload.
Yesterday, the Endeavour and space station crews began their last full day together.
Much of the astronauts’ morning was off-duty time. Then they wrapped up transfers of equipment and supplies between Endeavour and the station, and they checked out the tools needed for undocking and subsequent activities.
Also, the 10 space voyagers held a news conference, in which they said some predictable, and surprising, things.
For example, some found actual spacewalking work easier than the training back on Earth.
It’s great to be in space, sure, but it will be good to return to the home planet.
One great bonus in having the Japanese Kibo module added to the space station, and Doi on board, is the Japanese food that came on board, which Whitson said tastes great.